


I Heard it Through the Grapevine

by ObliqueOptimism



Series: A Friend of Mine [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 01:17:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18201536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliqueOptimism/pseuds/ObliqueOptimism
Summary: Klaus goes to visit an old war buddy. (And meets his family.)





	I Heard it Through the Grapevine

**Author's Note:**

> the first fic had such wonderful comments it made me want to write more, so here is part two of three? i'm thinking of a third part, i have an idea for it, i just have to write it. thank you all so much for you kind comments, it really made my day. again, thanks to [sam](wickedlydevious.tumblr.com) for giving the fic a quick beta. you all are awesome!

Phil was listening to his daughter describe her new job. Nancy had been working at the new restaurant for less than a week, but she liked it. It was their family night. Every two weeks, he and his daughters met up, typically at his house, and had a meal. Usually afterwards they stayed for a few hours and played card games or watched a new movie. Neither of his girls understood fully why he always bought the new Allison Hargreeves movie when one came out. He didn’t know how to explain that she was the sister to his old war buddy. They just assumed he was still obsessed with the Hargreeves.

“How about since we last saw you?” Nancy asked when she was done, “Anything exciting happen?”

Phil quickly took a bite of the spaghetti so he could debate what to say. _Oh nothing big, dear. I just met up with my time traveling brother and helped him and his super powered siblings stop the apocalypse somehow. We aren’t sure how, but it didn’t happen yet so things are looking positive._ “Oh, you know,” swallowing, he shrugged, “watched a lot of Ellen.” Which wasn’t a lie as he and Klaus tended to take time to watch her show. It was good for Klaus to have a sort of normalcy to help him cope with being back from war.

“Thats nice, Dad,” Jessica said with a smile. 

Before Phil could ask about Jessica, his front door opened and the three of them froze. He didn’t think anyone would be breaking into his house when someone was clearly home, but with the week he had just had, he wasn’t sure. He really hoped it wasn’t some time traveling assassins trying to fix the timeline by killing him. 

“Philip!” Klaus’s voice sounded as he made his way towards the dining room, “Ben and I -- fine just me -- I had a bad day.” Turning the corner, he stopped and stared at the room. “Oh. Uh. Hello.” He held up his _hello_ hand. He was wearing a crop top that said ‘THOT’ in bold letters under a feathered coat, his lace up leather pants, and absolutely no shoes. Phil idly wondering what ‘thot’ meant.

Jessica turned to Phil with a forced grin, “And who is this dad? A younger man? Who happens to feel comfortable enough to just let himself into your house? Does he have a key? But your _darling daughters_ don’t know a thing about him?”

Klaus’s eyes got rounded, “I should go now?” Hiking out his thumb, he started to back up. “I will, uh, maybe come back tomorrow? Uh, god, need to call that uber back,” He said the last bit quietly under his breath.

Phil quickly assessed his friend. His makeup didn’t hide the bags under his eyes, nor the slight redness as if he had either been crying (and then fixed his eyeliner), hadn’t slept in over a day, or just been pushing himself too hard. Knowing Klaus it could have been all three. All Phil knew for sure was that Klaus didn’t look high or drunk. So that was a plus.

“Sit down, Spook.” Phil stood up and walked towards Klaus. Putting his hands on his shoulders, he led him to the empty chair at the table. “I’ll get you a plate.”

“Oh, I already ate.” Klaus lied. Obviously so.

“Sure, and if I ask Ben when the last time that was?” Phil shook his head, pushing Klaus’s chair closer to the table. Klaus mumbled something under his breath. “What was that?”

Sighing, Klaus rested his forehead against a propped up hand, “Apparently nineteen hours.”

“That’s what I thought.” Phil ignored his daughter’s confused looks and ignored Klaus’s hissed word to Ben. He moved to get a small plate of spaghetti, along with a drink. 

While he was in the kitchen, he had to think again about what he would tell Jessica and Nancy. That was assuming that Klaus wasn’t being his usual honest self at that moment. It was a fifty/fifty chance that he would be telling them everything or he’d be feeling out of place and would stay quiet for a bit. It would maybe be a lot for his girls to take in, but if Klaus was willing to continue to be his friend, as it seemed he was, he really should tell them the truth. Besides, if Klaus was brave enough to never lie while in Vietnam, he could be brave enough to tell his daughters about his time traveling pansexual brother who was in love with a dead man.

Before entering back into the dining room, Phil propped the plate and silverware on his arm that had the glass in his hand and grabbed and empty chair. Ben would probably like a place to sit.

Entering the dining room, Phil wasn’t overly surprised to find it silent. Klaus was probably berating himself for interrupting Phil’s life and his girls were probably wondering when their dad picked up a younger man as a lover. He dropped off the food and put the empty chair next to Klaus.

“Oh,” Klaus blinked at the chair, “Ben says thanks.”

“Should I have grabbed him food or a drink also?” Phil didn’t think Ben could eat or drink.

“Oh no! Don’t waste it on him,” Klaus held up his hands, “Shush Ben. Be glad he got you a chair.” He then gave a worried smile to Phil, “Sorry. I should have called?”

“Klaus, I told you that you were always welcome here. Even before all the--” he waved his hand, hoping Klaus figured out that it meant before Klaus had been to ‘Nam. Klaus barked out a laugh. “Now eat your damn food.”

“Again,” Jessica started, “who is your new friend, dad?” 

“Old friend, actually.” Phil said, sitting back down. “Jessica, Nancy, meet Klaus. And Ben?”

“Yeah, he’s here.” Klaus nodded, almost subdued. He clearly was thinking he did wrong and Phil was going to have none of that.

“Wonderful. Thank you both for coming to family night,” Phil took a bite, “I should have invited you anyway, Spook. You’re my family too.” He really should have. He’d been spending a lot of time with Klaus and his family over the passed week, only right for it to go both ways and have Klaus meet his kids.

“So he _is_ your young gay lover!” Jessica accused.

“He looks younger than us,” Nancy said, before quickly adding, “Not that I don’t blame you for wanting someone in your life, or that its with another guy.” 

Phil put a hand on Klaus’s shoulder, “Not that you aren’t everything Dave said you are, but you aren’t my type.” Klaus snorted as Phil turned to his daughters, “I don’t know how to explain this easily--”

“I’m a time traveling war buddy,” Klaus interrupted, “Not his boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. He’s dead; he’s dead and he died in my arms and Phil! I still haven’t been able to see him!” His voice broke at the end, as did Phil’s heart for his friend. This was probably what his bad day was about.

“What in the world?” Jessica voiced. “Dad? A word?” She tilted her head towards the kitchen.

Shaking his head, Phil said, “Sorry sweetie. Klaus isn’t crazy,” ignoring Klaus’s bubbled laughter, “I did meet him in Vietnam.” He turned his attention to Klaus, “So the issue you are having is that you can’t see Dave?”

Klaus put his head in his hands and then peeked at him through his fingers, “Yeah?”

“Oh thank fuck.” Phil sighed and didn’t acknowledge his daughters’ surprise at his language. He didn’t tend to use language like that around them, but whenever he dealt with the war and the memories it brought out, he often found himself using colorful language. “It's not that I’m happy you can’t see him, but this is easier to deal with than the apocalypse.”

Jessica turned to her sister, “Dad’s joined a cult.”

“Is it easier, Philip? Is it?” Klaus asked sarcastically, “Because I’m actually trying to see my dear Dave while I didn’t do anything and the world didn’t end. I mean, sure, things got crazy when we found out Van was dating a murderer and she had powers, and that,” pausing he put on a whiney voice, “ _‘Oh I went to the moon for nothing!’_ Bullshit, no one cares, Luther!”

“Maybe you feel like you didn’t do anything to help because you spent the middle of the apocalypse week with me?” Phil suggested, “Those ten months would make it seem like not much happened.”

Klaus picked up a breadstick and thoughtfully chewed on it, “Yeah, and who knows what went down when I was being tortured?”

“Klaus was it?” Jessica stood up, “Sorry, but my father wants nothing of your crazy suicide cult!”

Klaus looked very confused, “I’m not part of a cult? Unless you count Daddy’s bullshit.” He leaned back thoughtfully.

“Oh my god.” Nancy said. 

“For fuck’s sake.” Phil got up and left the room, leaving his girls to rush after him and Klaus to stumble in the rear. He went to the sitting room and stood in front of his bookshelf. He knew it was here somewhere. He’d been meaning to get around to getting the pictures for Klaus but that had been put on the back burner when Diego had been arrested for murder of his ex. Thankfully he hadn’t done it. Phil didn’t know Diego enough to fully believe him at first, but Klaus explained the situation to him. 

Grabbing the old and dusty photo album, he sat down on the sofa and opened it on the coffee table. His daughters were on each side of him, as if to protect him from Spook. Klaus himself was biting at one of his nails and pacing back and forth.

“Look here,” he pointed at a picture of his time in Vietnam, “it’s me?”

“Yes, dad. We know that’s you,” Nancy nodded, as if she was worried for his sanity. He expected Jessica to be patronizing but not from his sweet Nancy.

“And standing beside me?” Phil felt almost silly spelling it out for his family.

Jessica’s brow furrowed, “Why does this maniac look like your friend from ‘Nam?”

“You’re smarter than this, honey.” Phil started to say, “Klaus said it already. He’s my time traveling war buddy.”

Klaus bent over the table and let out a giggle, “Oh look at you, Phil! Handsome as ever.”

“Still not interested, Spook,” Phil said, letting the girls turn pages in the book slowly, staring at Klaus as they did so.

“Like you could compare to Dave,” Klaus tutted. 

“Why am I now offended that you don’t want to sleep with my dad when before I was offended that you did want to sleep with my dad?” Nancy asked with wonder as she took out a photo that had a close up of Klaus and held it up to his face.

“So wait,” Jessica turned to Phil, “what the actual fuck, dad?”

“Klaus maybe time traveled to Vietnam accidentally and was stuck with us for a bit,” Phil started, “and then he got back to his normal time last week. It's not that complicated.” 

“Don’t tell Five that.” Klaus grinned. “He’ll sit you down and explain time travel in a very boring and math way. And then get mad at you when you say you weren’t sober enough for this shit!”

“You asked him to go back and to save Dave, didn’t you?” Phil sighed.

Nodding, Klaus said, “He called me an idiot.” 

“You are an idiot,” Phil agreed. But by god, if Phil didn’t love his idiot brother.

Nancy watched Klaus as he sat down in a chair next to her and sighed, “So who are you, exactly? How did you-- How did you time travel? I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe I’m starting to think you time traveled.”

“Klaus Hargreeves.” Klaus held up his _hello_ hand again. “Lovely to meet Phil’s family.”

Jessica turned on Phil as Nancy slowly said Klaus’s name to herself, “That kid from the Umbrella Academy you were obsessed with? I mean, you were always oddly interested in all of them, but if I remember right you took it to another level with him.”

Klaus laughed and clapped, “You were obsessed with me?”

“Listen you little shit, do you know how hard it was for the boys and I to not go break into that ungodly mansion and kidnap you all?” Phil asked seriously, locking eyes with Klaus, “Mostly you? We had to do an intervention with Cade. He was ready to do anything to get you out of there. But we didn’t know shit about time travel and if we saved you from that asshole you called dad then who says you would end up in Vietnam? Would we forget who you were? Wonder why we had this kid who could see the dead with us? We couldn’t risk it. But by god, did we want to just shoot your daddy in his smug head and save you.”

Klaus was stunned in silence. He was crying again. Dave would have hit him upside the head for making Klaus cry. They’d learned early on that you would have to pay attention because Klaus always cried so silently. He’d stop in his tracks sometimes, silently crying, someone (usually Dave) would notice and then Klaus would announce that someone died. When he got injured he’d be loud and vocal, but you wouldn’t tell by his voice that he was also crying. Sometimes when he told them stories about his childhood, and what his father had done, he’d being crying. But if you weren’t looking at his face, you wouldn’t know.

“Oh,” Klaus said. 

“Yeah, ‘oh’.” Phil shook his head, “By the way, we need to let the rest of the boys know you’re back. They’d want to see you.”

“Of course.” Klaus nodded, “I just-- It was only you who had ever found me or helped me before ‘Nam, y’know?”

“Yep. I was the lucky one who had to deal with trying to wrangle you into eating when you didn’t trust me. When I told the boys I’d run into you, they all wanted to try and track you down and force you to sleep on their sofas or eat or give you money even if you were going to use it on drugs.” Phil sighed, “But we didn’t want to overwhelm you, to force the issue. So we all agreed that if any of us organically ran into you, it would be fine, but we couldn’t hunt you down.” Standing up, Phil clapped his hands, “Speaking of, you still haven’t eaten and it’s been nineteen hours and knowing you it was just a bag of marshmallows.”

“Blame Five. He’s the one who has been buying them in bulk. I think he’s still worried the world will end and wants as many marshmallows for his sandwiches in case the worst should happen.” Klaus shrugged, getting up to join Phil in the kitchen. He turned to Jessica and Nancy, “Hope the food isn’t cold.”

Together the four of them returned to their food where the conversation was stilted and awkward. Phil could tell that his girls still weren’t sure about Klaus, still not wanting to believe that he could have been in war with their dad. But as the meal progressed (with them reheating the food), they started to believe more and more. It helped that he and Klaus shared some of the more fun war stories, making it obvious that they were both there. 

When they were done, Klaus was clearly ready to go home and leave them for the night but Phil was having none of that. His brother had had a hard day and he wasn’t going to let himself wallow in that mansion feeling sorry for himself.

“Card games?” He took out a deck of cards that was kept near the table. 

It meant a lot of Phil that Jessica took deep breath before saying, “You should stay, Klaus. We usually don’t have a fourth player.”

“That’s me,” Klaus joked in a pseudo light tone, “number four.” 

They would have played Hearts, an ideal game for four players, but Klaus had never learned it and before they could suggest they teach him, he proposed poker. So Phil got his poker chips out of the closet and they started some friendly rounds.

Klaus had been beating them with ease for a time before Phil, feeling like an idiot, called him out on it. “Spook! Stop having Ben help you cheat!” He pointed his finger at his friend, “I know that's what you’re doing. Took me a while to remember, but you were only good at this when you had a ghostie telling you everyone’s hands.”

Grinning, Klaus shrugged, “Just using every advantage I got, Philly Cheesesteak.”

It wasn’t long after that when Phil’s daughters said their goodnight, Nancy actually hugging Klaus and whispering something in his ear that made him freeze for a second before hugging her back tighter. Jessica was a little more hesitant with Klaus, but was friendly enough, saying she expected him on their next family night.

“Drink?” Phil asked as the door closed, leaving the two (three?) of them. 

Klaus let out a whistle, “So tempted to take you up on that old man. But, trying to stay one hundred percent god damned sober. This shit sucks.”

Phil grinned and patted Klaus on the shoulder, “Good.”

Going back to the sitting room, they found themselves looking at the pictures again. “You can have some of these, others I’ll have copies made. You deserve to have mementoes of your time there.” Pausing, he added, “Beyond the tattoo, Dave’s dog tags, and PTSD.”

“He won’t come see me,” Klaus said, staring at a picture of Dave. “I’ve been sober for a bit; that’s not working. I’m constantly barefoot, hoping feeling more grounded will help, but _nien_. It's me. I’m the issue. Either I’m the disappointment and failure Reggie always said I was or Dave just doesn’t care like I thought.”

Phil put and arm around Klaus, “Shut it, Spook. You are in no way a failure. You are one the strongest people I know. If I had found myself in your position? I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle it, not with the grace you have. And as far as Dave goes? I saw how he looked at you. For some reason he thought the sun shone out your ass. Klaus,” he turned his brother so he faced him, “he one time said that life before you was like a black and white movie and after you showed up in a shocking blue light, he could see color. There were times when I was with Betty that I thought we were doomed because I didn’t love her like Dave did you. Which maybe helps explain our divorce.” Klaus let out a wet laugh. “It’s not you, asshole, and it's not Dave either. Its got to be something else. He died in Vietnam, would he be stuck over there? Otherside of the world? Or he’s buried back at his home? They shipped him back to--” Phil paused, trying to remember where Dave said he was from.

“Louisiana,” Klaus supplied.

“Right, there. His grave is there. Would any of that matter?” Phil suggested.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But that would mean I’d have to travel, possibly back to Viet-fucking-nam to see him?” Klaus shuttered. “I don’t-- I can’t--”

“Of course not. It just might take longer than a week for him to show up.” Phil said, “Just keep trying, okay? Don’t give up on him; he never gave up on you.”

They talked a little longer, Phil making Klaus sleep on his sofa again, like old times, they joked. He drove Klaus back home the next morning, after making sure he ate breakfast and he was even able to see Ben for a bit. 

By the next family night, Klaus pulled up two empty chairs to the table, one on each side of him and gave exuberant greetings to his daughters. Then he introduced them to both Ben and Dave.

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](obliqueoptimism.tumblr.com)


End file.
